The floral clock—once a
popular garden feature—has largely escaped the attention of garden historians,
but it is high time these quirky timepieces were reassessed.
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| 1970s English comic postcard with a floral clock theme Art work by Brian Perry for Bamforth & Co |
One of the horticultural
oddities of the last century is the floral clock. Most of us have encountered them
from time to time during our travels, often sighted on gentle slopes in
manicured public gardens at tourist destinations. Apart from a moment’s thought
at the sophistication of the technology and the intricate plantings used by the
designers, most of these outdoor landscapes are soon forgotten. As a working
gardener I’ve had a fascination with these quirky garden features throughout
much of my working life. Not only are they a reflection of the design and
propagation skills of their creators but they also express the civic pride and
wealth of the community in which they are located.
Floral clocks are found
throughout the world but usually within temperate latitudes within societies
which can afford the high cost of upkeep. Hotspots for these horologically
functional novelties include North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.
But floral clocks of one form or another can be found in other areas of the
world too—I know of examples in India, China, and Japan, and recently stumbled
on one in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh, hardly a city we connect with
municipal prosperity.
While mostly associated
with twentieth-century landscape design practice, floral clocks have a history
that dates back to the eighteenth century (and even earlier if their
horological cousin the sundial is included). The celebrated eighteenth-century Swedish
naturalist Carl Linnaeus was, for example, obsessed with the possibilities of
creating a botanical clock, known as a Horologe or Watch of Flora, made up of
46 different flowering plants which opened and closed as the day progressed,
thus informing the viewer of the time of day.
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| The Swedish botanist Linnaeus proposed the idea for a clock made out of living plants
image from author's postcard collection
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Linnaeus’s plan seems
solely an intellectual fancy restricted to observations of the habits of
individual plants, and to the best of our knowledge his clock was never
constructed. Despite this, his research in Uppsala found a reflective audience
over the following decades and ‘dial plants’ were sometimes grown in botanical
collections. The early nineteenth-century British gardening authority J.C.
Loudon, for instance, listed a number of dial plants suitable for the purpose
in his influential Encyclopaedia of Gardening
(1822).
During the nineteenth
century, floral or carpet bedding became increasingly popular and gardeners
experimented in constructing intricate designs combining brightly coloured
plants sourced from around the world. Reflecting the tastes of the time,
gardeners tried to make plants look like something else. While many such
bedding designs were laid out in private gardens the increasing establishment
of public parks saw these skills transferred into a civic setting.
While carpet bedding began to
loose popularity in the late nineteenth century there was clearly an interest
to use the skills learnt in ‘bedding-out’ in a new modern way. Reflecting the
advances in technology it is not surprising that someone would eventually build
an outdoor clock decorated with living plants, with the time being articulated
by machine (clock hands) rather than by the plants themselves.
The earliest known example
of a floral clock was the l’horloge
fleurie created by a French horticulturist named Debert in the Trocadéro
gardens in Paris (1892). Not long after, another was constructed across the
Atlantic at Water Works Park, Detroit (1893) and a decade later the still-extant
clock at West Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh (1903). Another significant
early example was the giant clock created for the 1904 World’s Fair in St Louis,
Missouri. Other early floral clocks were also constructed in Le Mans,
Interlaken, and Budapest as well as elsewhere in Europe.
After the first wave of
interest in floral clocks some of these were abandoned due to the upheavals of
the Great War, but during the 1920s and 1930s interest in the concept returned.
With the increasing popularity of the motor car many towns constructed floral
clocks as tourist attractions and many new floral clocks were constructed in
English coastal towns.
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| Edinburgh's famous floral clock in 1958 |
Floral clocks came on the
scene at the same time as the fashion for postcard collecting so it comes as no
surprise that these gardens would become a popular subject. Thanks to the
popularity of postcard collecting we have a record of nearly all of them, and
as plantings changed each year these postcard views offer a revealing record of
changing design approaches. The best-known example of this chronological record
is of the Edinburgh floral clock, photographed by postcard sellers most years
since 1903. Designs used for this high-profile example have celebrated royal
celebrations and civic achievements as well as anniversaries of significant
local worthies.
The first floral clock in
Australia was built in Sydney’s Taronga Zoo in 1928 and since that time it has
been a popular landmark destination. In 1930 a clock was built at the Royal
Agricultural Showground in Melbourne. This example was constructed at the
height of the Great Depression and the mechanism was made out of scrap parts, a
thrifty showpiece which was a popular curio at the showground for many years. Following
the construction of the large clock in Melbourne’s King’s Domain, however, the
Showground dial lost its uniqueness and was later removed.
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| The former floral clock at the Melbourne Show Ground |
As someone who has planted
out formal annual beds I am in awe of the skill of the gardeners who plant-out
the dials of these clocks. While some modern dials are decorated with mass
plantings and coloured gravels, the true floral clock is decorated with
thousands of tiny individual plants that have been raised from seed prior to
planting out.
Many of the locations of
the early clocks were found in temperate climates with cold winters. Therefore
the annual planting-out of the dial face only occurred in spring, after the end
of the cold weather, as many of the plants were frost tender. Plant selection
was important but with the large range of plants imported from around the world
designers have had a large range of plants from which to choose.
Succulents are a popular
choice in many floral clock planting schemes. Hardy sedum and sempervivum are
desirable as they are easy to propagate, diminutive in size, and come in a
large range of colours. Less hardy choices include the larger-sized echeveria
and agave. While there are many suitable non-succulent plants, popular choices
include alternanthera, lobelia, alyssum, senecio, coleus, iberis, feverfew (Tanacetum parthenium), and salvia.
While most landscape themes
have been well studied it is slightly surprising that garden historians have written
little about these highly distinctive, much viewed landscapes. It is hard to
explain such historical neglect as carpet bedding has been well documented and
analysed. But perhaps these quirky landscapes have been perceived in some
quarters as a form of horticultural kitsch, reflective of an earlier artistic
aesthetic. But like the recent interest in garden gnomes—now sanctioned by
Chelsea Flower Show—there is hope for a revival of interest in these intricate,
technologically inspired, floral landscapes.
Listen to Silas Clifford-Smith talking about floral clocks with Michael Williams on ABC Radio National's Blue Print for Living programme (aired on 5th March 2016) http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/blueprintforliving/the-folly-of-the-floral-clock/7210984
Listen to Silas Clifford-Smith talking about floral clocks with Michael Williams on ABC Radio National's Blue Print for Living programme (aired on 5th March 2016) http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/blueprintforliving/the-folly-of-the-floral-clock/7210984
This article was first published as 'Floral Clocks: Civic Pride of Horticultural Kitsch' in the July-September 2014 issue of Australian Garden History (the journal of the Australian Garden History Society). This issue is available online at the AGHS website.
